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Aids orphans of Africa and the SOS Children’s Villages response

August 7, 2007

Orphans to reach 18 million by 2010

Today, there are 13 million children who have become orphans due to HIV/AIDS, 90% of which live in Africa. Furthermore in sub-Saharan Africa, one in six children has become orphaned because of HIV/AIDS, and that figure is expected to reach 1 in 3 by the year 2010. SOS Children’s Villages and their family-based model of care form the basis of efforts to help local communities struggling throughout Africa. SOS Children’s Villages outreach programs help struggling families to cope with the epidemic, precisely the children who have lost parents and became AIDS orphans. As the AIDS epidemic in Africa continues to traumatize the African children, SOS Children’s Villages gears its programs towards providing sustained help to prevent future child abandonment.

Due to the extent of the disease and the rapid increase in the number of children who are orphaned on account of AIDS; SOS Children’s Villages is challenged to care for children distressed by the loss of one or both parents, have no economic security, isolated by poverty, or mentally overtaxed and excluded from the education process. SOS Children’s Villages also cares for tens of thousands of affected individuals and their families by working with NGO’s and local organizations providing support in the form of clothing, food, and payment of school fees, improving living conditions, medical aid and psychological and social support.

New hopes are held with SOS new Family-Care Program which is a joint initiative between SOS Children’s Villages and the Salvation Army. It is designed to strengthen the capacity of families to care for orphans and other HIV/AIDS-affected children. It is families like those of Nozipho, a 26 year old HIV positive mother of two children under the age of five, who hope to benefit from the program. Too young to die and like many other mothers through out the AIDS infested continent, her last desperate plea asks, “please will you help take care of my children when I’m gone?”

Topics: Childrens Village news, Africa |